by Rye Brewer
“Hmm?” She was almost in a daze, nearly exhausted from her efforts. Her pick of the evening had nearly gotten away from her, and she’d had to learn in a hurry how to course in order to catch up to him.
I didn’t know whether I should repeat myself or not. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, to begin with. I didn’t want her to know how many misgivings I had in regards to our new life. “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
“Mm-hmm.” She snuggled in closer to me and let it go.
A lucky break.
She was a natural hunter, I had to give her that. From that first night, when she’d lured the pair who’d come out of the bar to an alley before feasting on one while Micah took the other, I’d known she was a force to be reckoned with. A passerby had noticed the movement in the shadows and I’d pulled her in, slicing her jugular with my fangs almost out of reflex—more to protect us than out of thirst, even though I had been fiercely thirsty, and the scent of blood coming from the two being drained behind me had wrapped me in a fog of lust. Micah had instructed us on leaving the bodies in a dumpster before we’d moved on.
It was her instinct and that never-ceasing lust of hers which unsettled me. She hadn’t slowed down, even after a solid week of almost nonstop hunting from the moment the sun set until just before dawn. She was tearing a swath across the city and loving every minute of it.
“Relax,” Micah had urged once after noticing my concern. “Believe me, there are far more unsolved, unreported crimes in the city than you’ll ever know. We’ve been in business for centuries, and nobody from the clan has ever been caught.”
I had to marvel at that. There were dozens of them, roaming the Catacombs during the day and preying on humans at night. Didn’t the police connect the dots between the numbers of deaths and the manners of death? All of the victims were drained of blood. It didn’t set off any alarms? He assured me we were safe, and I had no choice but to take his word for it.
That wasn’t even my biggest worry. Would that it were.
I couldn’t speak up against him, suggest we prey on humans in other areas—maybe even outside the city for once. He’d been running the clan almost since his arrival in Europe, after all. He wouldn’t welcome my opinions. If he grew angry and kicked us out…
Or kicked me out…
Not her.
He wouldn’t do that to her. No, not to her. His interest in her was obvious. He didn’t even try to hide it for my sake. He wanted her badly. My arms tightened ever so slightly when I remembered the look he’d given her after she’d taken down the jogger who’d tried to run away through the dark, deserted square. How his eyes had danced as he locked gazes with her.
The moment I spoke out against his decision making, he’d take it as an invitation to kick me out. I was sure of it. Granted, he was nothing but friendly to my face. That slinking, winking, knowing sort of friendliness which seemed to just barely conceal some deeper, darker intention. This wasn’t like opposing Jonah. Jonah was my twin. He’d had no choice but to put up with me.
Only the sensation of her body shaking against mine was enough to pull me out of my dark thoughts. “What is it?” I asked, holding her tight and knowing the answer already.
“It’s like… in the moment, it all makes sense. There’s nothing to even think about. I’m doing what I’m meant to do, and I’m good at it, and it’s what I want. I feel alive. But now…”
“This is what we need to do to survive,” I whispered, stroking her blonde hair away from her forehead. “I don’t even want to tell you about the alternative. It’s worse than death.”
She nodded, though she still shook slightly. “I only wish… I wish I didn’t like it so much.”
“There’s nothing wrong with liking it, either.” I rolled her onto her back, so I could look down at her. “I mean it. It’s our instincts. I haven’t hunted like this in a long time, since before we reached the treaty with the humans. It’s a feeling I had forgotten. I have to admit, the hunt is addictive.”
“You’re not just saying that?” The hope in her eyes was so touching, I could hardly stand it.
“I’m not just saying it.” I kissed the tip of her nose. It was all true. I enjoyed hunting, too, even though I couldn’t help but worry about how it affected the clan if Cari was left unchecked.
I worried about her, too. About whether she’d ever be able to live life the way I’d learned to live it. I’d been civilized for so long. Mostly because of my family and the League. Cari didn’t have that luxury.
I looked around the room—comfortable, even well-appointed, but still a cave that served as a mass grave—then back at her. “Are you happy here?”
“Yes. As happy as I can be, I guess. You’re here.”
That was a good sign, at any rate. “If we weren’t here, would you still be happy?”
“Where would we go?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. It’s just a thought—you know, what would happen if we had to move on?”
“But what about Naomi and Jerome and Peter? Bianca and Joli?”
“What about them? You’ve spent a lot of time with them, yes, but I moved on without my family, too.” And they weren’t family to her—though at least she hadn’t mentioned Micah. “Don’t worry about it. I’m only speaking hypothetically. What if.”
“All right.” She frowned as she stroked my cheek. “Are you happy? I guess I haven’t asked you that, and that’s wrong of me. I’m sorry. You matter, too.”
“As long as I’m with you,” I whispered.
18
Gage
We were out again, the following night, in a larger group than usual. Micah had bragged about what an incredible job Cari had done in coursing to catch her prey, and since then the rest of the clan had clamored to witness her in action.
And she loved it. I felt as though I were watching from outside, moving at the edges of the group, unable to get close to her. But not Micah. He got as close to her as he wanted—touching her hair, patting her back or her arm, letting his hand slide down to her waist.
I always managed to catch his eye and move closer to her when he did that sort of thing, and he smiled as though he couldn’t be blamed for flirting a little.
“It’s the French way, mon ami,” he’d explained once.
“You weren’t born in France, mon ami,” I’d reminded him with a tight smile.
We moved in a pack, in twos and threes to make us look less obvious, but always together. Micah had decided to patrol along the banks of the Seine that night, and walking hand-in-hand with Carissa, the Eiffel Tower sparkling up ahead was almost enough to make me forget who we really were and what we were actually doing there.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, eyes shining when she looked at me with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to see it.”
“We’ll have to go to the top sometime,” I offered.
Anything to do something normal with her, something people actually did besides hunting and hanging around the Catacombs. I never knew how good I’d had it before, back in New York. To think, I’d been so dissatisfied for so long. I’d never be able to return to that relatively simple life.
“I would love that.” She leaned in for a kiss.
It was a brief kiss as Micah cleared his throat over her shoulder. “Excuse-moi, you two, but we’re out here for a reason.”
I could’ve ripped his head from his shoulders and kicked it into the river. Mostly because his reminder seemed to flip a switch in her. She became somebody else—no longer the sweet, smart, funny, charming girl I had fallen in love with, the girl I knew was still in there.
The bloodthirsty vampire in her nodded, her golden hair bouncing.
His eyes glowed with pleasure when he looked down at her. “You’re ready to do what you’re so talented at?” he asked, a half-smile curling the corner of his mouth.
“I am,” she murmured with a smile of her own.
“My talented Carissa.” His voice was a deep, sexy caress.
And it set off the rage I’d been barely holding back up to that point. But instead of attacking him, letting his blood baptize me, I looked around for a target.
There was a couple walking along the banks. I made a beeline for them without waiting for the others to catch on to my plan. Not that I even had a plan. An intent, really. I needed a way to vent my rage, as simple as that. I waited until they disappeared into the shadows under a bridge before I closed in. It was likely that they had ducked under there to have a private moment.
They should’ve been paying attention.
I took the woman first, pulling her back by the hair and slicing her throat with my fangs before either of them knew I was even nearby. He stopped in his tracks when she did—they were still holding hands—and opened his mouth to curse, or scream, or call for help.
I used her arm to pull him back to me and clamped an iron hand over his mouth to keep him quiet while I fed and he pissed himself. The girl’s slender body jerked and thrashed against me, but not for long before she went limp.
When she was finished, I turned my attention to him. He’d passed out from fear and horror long since, but his heart was still pumping blood fast and furiously, so it was hardly difficult to feast on him. As I drank, I remembered what I’d always enjoyed about this, about taking what I wanted. People who thought they were strong, even invincible, but I was stronger. Smarter. Faster. I could hurt them. Kill them. Use them to keep myself alive and healthy, because I was superior. Yes, this was the way it was always meant to be. Anything else was unnatural for a creature like me.
He dropped at my feet when I was finished, drained dry, sprawled out on top of his dead lover. The deep shadow under the bridge turned them into nothing recognizable. They could easily be a pile of garbage, or a pair of homeless vagrants who humans went out of their way to ignore. I licked my lips, catching the last drops of blood which lingered there.
“Wow.”
I looked up to find Cari watching, mouth hanging open.
“I’ve never seen you like that before.”
“And?” I asked, still breathing heavy and feeling a little heady after drinking so much at once.
Everything around me was clearer, sharper. More.
She came to me, reaching out to catch one droplet of blood which had dripped onto my chin.
She raised her finger to her lips and sucked. “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun here,” she whispered.
19
Anissa
It all felt like a dream. Like a terrible, horrible, unimaginable dream. Only I couldn’t wake up.
The trickling of water over the outside of the prison’s walls was the only sound I heard outside of my own breathing. Breathing that I forced myself to do slowly, taking one careful breath at a time. Measuring the length of inhale, of exhale. The only thing I could control.
Otherwise, my world was spiraling, and I was getting further away from the light at the end of the tunnel with every passing minute.
So, this was it. This was the end of the road for me—at least until the Senate saw fit to let me go. There was no telling when that would be. Fane had mentioned the word “centuries” when we’d discussed this place. Centuries of waiting. I tried to imagine it and had to stop when tears threatened to overwhelm me.
My feet were nearly numb with cold, though I was fully dressed. All that was missing were my weapons—I could still feel the rough-handed guards going over me, searching for any contraband. They’d found a treasure trove in my boots. For the first time in as long as I could remember, the supple leather only held my feet.
Luckily, they hadn’t found the weapon used on Lucian that I’d snatched and tucked in my boot. I hadn’t really given it much thought after, merely found a place at the Bourke high-rise and stashed it out of sight.
Also, at least they hadn’t taken my ring. I looked down at the beautiful band with its stones that still sparkled even in the semi-dark holding cell until tears blurred my vision. What would my parents say when they found out? And they had been so happy together, too. I was ruining that, all because I was too pigheaded to listen to reason. Pride had always been one of my greatest flaws—along with stubbornness.
I hoped my mother didn’t mind waiting a few hundred years to finish planning my wedding.
I hoped Jonah didn’t mind waiting.
I thought about Samara and Elazar. She had waited for him all that time. Jonah would wait, too. That was the sort of man he was, the sort who stuck by his promises and refused to turn away when the going got tough. I didn’t think I’d love him half as much if he wasn’t so dependable, honorable. But I’d let him go if it came down to it. I loved him too much to make him wait for me. It wouldn’t be fair to him.
I was thinking too far ahead, and I knew it. A tendency I thought I had broken myself of in the months after the Great Fire, when I thought we had lost our parents forever. The years had spooled out ahead of me, unthinkably dangerous and fraught with uncertainty. I had finally realized that taking the entire future in one large swallow was the surest path to madness. One day at a time was the only way to tackle the unknown.
What could I do in the present? Not much. I could stop torturing myself with thoughts of Jonah, for one. And my parents, for another. That was all in the future, and I couldn’t control that. I could only keep myself sane and together.
Which was what made it unfortunate that I happened to hear a familiar voice echoing down the corridor.
“What’s the meaning of this? Where is my daughter?” He sounded as though he were about ready to tear the prison down, stone by stone.
I leaped from the bunk and went to the cell bars—the Senate hadn’t taken into account my fae blood, and the fact that silver didn’t hurt me. When I wrapped my hands around them, straining to see where the voice was coming from, I didn’t feel a thing.
“Hello?” I called out, trying to raise my voice over his.
He came on the run, with Felicity on his heels.
I didn’t know if I was thrilled to see them or horrified. “What are you doing here? How did you find out so quickly?”
“Find out? I didn’t find out anything about this until we arrived! What’s the meaning of it? Why are you in a cell, like some sort of common prisoner?” Gregor’s voice rose progressively over the course of his rant until he was nearly screaming, tendons standing out on his neck.
Felicity tried in vain to quiet him, but he waved her off.
He wouldn’t be able to wave Stark off the way he did Felicity.
Stark, who at the moment, was hurrying down the corridor, waving his arms. “Do you want to bring the entire Senate in here ahead of time?”
“Ahead of time?” Gregor bellowed.
Stark held a finger to his lips, looking over his shoulder.
The cells around mine were empty—Scott had to be further down the line, away from me. I assumed they wanted to keep us apart because they thought we were friends. Hardly.
“Quiet, please.” Stark frowned. When he seemed sure we were alone, he whispered, “There’s something about to happen. Something big. I wish you weren’t here.”
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” Stark countered with a scowl. “You’re not a witch.” He glanced at Felicity. “Neither of you is. You’re fae. What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to know the same thing,” I muttered, then turned my attention to Stark. “My father. His advisor—my friend,” I added at the last moment.
“How did you know Anissa had been convicted?” he asked.
“Convicted? Of what?” To his credit, Gregor kept his voice down this time, but his eyes were wide, stunned.
So were Felicity’s.
“You’re not here because of what happened? Because the Senate sentenced me to prison?” I whispered.
“Sentenced?” Gregor’s face turned as red as a tomato. Almost as red as blood.
Felicity’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Anissa.”
“I wouldn�
�t worry about that,” Stark assured them, awkwardly patting Felicity’s shoulder. He was so distracted, always looking over his shoulder as though he were waiting for someone to come running down the corridor. “We’re about to do something that will take care of the Senate for good.”
“You’re what?” I asked, aghast.
“It was Elewyn’s idea. I was coming down here to warn you that we’d be in to free you, and then we’ll need you in the fight. It’s the only way, Anissa.”
“I’ll do it, if it means being free,” I replied without even having to think about it. I wouldn’t mind taking out every single one of those evil, sneering witches, no matter what it took.
But what of Gregor and Felicity?
I looked at them, torn. “You should hide or get out of here or something.”
“How could we do that?” my father demanded. “Do you think I would allow anyone to imprison my daughter? Do you think I would run and hide when matters are difficult? I’ll be on the front lines, daughter. Wait and see.”
“Please, please, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. Don’t do this on my account. They’re powerful witches.”
“I’m inclined to agree with her,” Stark murmured, grimacing.
He clearly didn’t want to insult my father, I could tell. He was smart to know how dangerous something like that could be.
Gregor might not have been a witch, he might not have been able to encase a person in ice, the way Stark could, but he was powerful in his own way.
My stubborn father shook his head.
So that was where I got my stubbornness from.
“Absolutely not. I won’t step down now. My daughter will be free. I’ve decided it.” There was no arguing with him once he made up his mind that way.
“Just be careful,” I urged him, even as my heart glowed.
He loved me. It wasn’t his way to come out and say something like that, point-blank—he demonstrated his feelings, instead.
